NCAA Concussion Case Filed, 28 Former Players Seeking Relief

My friends Roger Orlando and Ronnie Mabra are doing good work, and here is a PR I just received from them:

Atlanta, GA (November 22, 2013) –

In a key filing today, more than 25 former college football players including lead Plaintiffs Jerry Caldwell from Georgia Tech and Johnny Brown from the University of Georgia have asked to hold the NCAA accountable for life altering brain injuries suffered on fields of play.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal Court in Atlanta, GA on behalf of all former college football players who are experiencing the same type of problems associated with repeated traumatic head injuries, seeks medical monitoring and testing. Each suffered traumatic and lifelong brain injuries.

The Complaint lists former football players from across the USA. They played the game at universities ranging from Stanford, Boston College, and Vanderbilt, to Valdosta State and Ft. Valley State.

The complaint claims that the NCAA had a duty to educate former players about the risks of concussions and asks an Atlanta Georgia Court to establish protocols to prevent, mitigate, monitor, diagnose, and treat brain injuries; and to offer education and needed medical monitoring to its former players.

The attorneys for all the players are, Roger Orlando and Ronnie Mabra. Mr. Orlando says that the NCAA has not taken the necessary steps to protect these former players: “For decades the NCAA knew of the dangers of head injuries to student athletes. Indeed, its founding was based in part on the brutality of the game in the early 1900s. These injuries have affected former players of all ages at all levels of college football.”

Mr. Mabra, counsel on the filed action and a former Georgia Tech football player and current state legislator notes: “of all cases recently filed, none have the diversity and true representation that this filed case has,” noting that concussions harmed players from large well known universities to small state based colleges.

The complaint seeks a court-supervised, NCAA-funded, comprehensive medical monitoring program to benefit former football players.